80 year old Grandmother Helen's turn to reply

Millie, Halley, and all who responded to my evite within hours to come and celebrate by 80th birthday. I'd had 79 happy parties, and it was time to meet old age head on and do something fun with all ages, and hopefully worthwhile too. My inspiration came in church when I heard Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity speak. He has since started Fuller houses in the South, but taking our large family to Alabama in the summer wasn't feasible so I settled for the local Habitat project.

I have such fun vignettes of the work week. Doc (83) sanding all day in an under the stairwall closet, Lorraine wielding a pick-ax on the sidewalk and smoothing cement, teenagers Jake and Nolan mudding the walls and themselves, Halley painting, and Doc finally finding mudding and so excited about that we plan to go back for the day on his 83rd birthday in August. The great cement crew of Luke, Chas. and Gordon, and the master electrician, Millie, who ended up with a lot of us on her team.

Special moments were when I tried to show the paper photographer my "three wonderful sons" who at the moment were all flat on their backs in the dirt trying to line up two boards for a form. Chas. piped up, "yeah, we have two MBAs and a PhD here and still haven't got it straight!" And as we left the final day Millie was offered a potential job as an electrician at $75.00 per hour. When she got frustrated with the lack of supplies, she made her own list and told the boss she was going to Home depot. He said, "I'll go with you, but she said, "I'll be back before you get to your truck", and she took over from then on with wiring 3 units. I found Halley hiding in a closet the last day (not for more than a couple of minutes) but knew it was time for our week on the beach. As we left the project one of the future home owners proudly showed me photos of his two children with tears in his eyes as they woould soon "have rooms of their own!" Time well spent in every way.

The youngest three (3,4,5) joined us for the beach week and my heart stayed warm that week too as I watched the little ones riding around on the shoulders of the 3 cousin teenagers, learning to ride waves with them and surf with Auntie Lorraine. It was also fun to see brothers Chas. (40) and Gordon(37) on the living room floor with their old racing car track (found in a closet) set up for serious racing. I gave up one night when Chas. and Jake (15) were still in hot competition at 11:30. What fun!

I have another view of the little one's big eyes as the Nashville teenagers bestowed their old baseball mitt, golf clubs and rollar blades. I loved seeing cool hand Jake lace up 5 yr. old Caitlin's skates, to go walking Checkers (dog), followed by Ryan (3) on a tricycle and little Luke who decided to take the inflated birthday balloon for a walk too. What a parade! How much fun can life be!

The interactionof all ages and families as we worked and played together was truly magic to watch and did give me the happiest birthday of my life! Thank you all!